Summit Meeting
Every year we have a job that’s a straggler. It’s difficult to pinpoint an exact cause, but it seems there’s always one we can’t quite pull the trigger on. The Sunbeam Alpine Mk V which has been with us for almost a year is our current poster child. While it would be highly inaccurate to say there’s been a lull in the actionaround here, for the last two weeks Butch has been working assiduously to turn the corner with the Alpine.
A spark plug makes a good fround
It’s an undertaking which has been exacerbated by some exceptionally creative repairing by previous unknown technicians, which we suspect had taken place in somewhere in the deep South like Alabama or Mississippi. An exceptionally wonderful example of this is the 1/2″ electrical ring terminal around #4 sparkplug. At first we believed this was simply a convenient means of grounding some obscure electrical function, but closer examination revealed that it was actually a temperature sensor wire leading to a supplementary instrument with a Harley-Davidson legend on the face.
More creative repairing with an MGB brake cable
We strongly suspect that the same fitter-installer was likely responsible for replacing the driver’s and passenger side floors. In the course of executing this task in an expeditious manner, the handbrake assembly, which is mounted on the driver’s side inner sill was R&TA’d (removed & thrown away) ! A used one was sourced from the San Diego area and a suitable mounting arranged, although we were also short a brake cable. Butch spent the better part of a day trying to make a good cable out of two used ones, finally abandoning the effort in favor of suitibly modifying a late MGB brake cable which utilizes a rod arrangement between the wheels similar to the Alpine’s.
Unusual sight amid the foliage
Oh yes, about that summit. Just after Mike Savage delivered the gunmetal grey E-type last week, Tom Rymes arrived with a couple of surplus Girling Mk2B brake servos, and hard on his heels was Dennis Pettit, who keeps his TR6 up here, there being no room at the Inn, aka the Hickory Ridge House B&B in Putney, Dennis & Gillian Pettit proprietors. So the photo is of Messrs’ Howe, Rymes, Rowbottom, Savage & Pettit.
The best of the bright red & orange foliage is pretty much gone now, however I did happen to catch a glimpse of some while headed south through Massachusetts on Interstate 91 earlier in the week. But perhaps even rarer around here is this TR7. In more than 25 years we’ve had a sum total of one in the shop. This must be the other.
